Ice Cube Turns 41 & Celebrates 20 Year Anniversary Of Debut

June 15, 2010 marks the 41st birthday of O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson, one of the best MCs to ever touch a microphone.

The month of June also marks another important anniversary in Cube’s life: the 20th anniversary of his debut solo album, Amerikkka’s Most Wanted.

Cube sat down with XXL Magazine recently to talk about the album track-by track.

Read a snippet of the article below, and find the full piece in the June issue of XXL Magazine, on stands now!

2.“The N***a Ya Love to Hate”
Produced by The Bomb Squad
Co-produced by Ice Cube and Sir Jinx

Ice Cube: That record was actually an N.W.A record. It was originally called “The N****s You Love to Hate,” and I was writing it as an N.W.A track. Then, when I left the group, I just went on and put two more verses on it and kept it for myself. So the song was in my notebook, kinda there… Eric Sadler would come in with these crazy, amazing-a*s bottom beats that just was the s**t. I would start rappin’ off of ’em. So when one of those bottom beats took hold, and he had Steve Arrington’s “Weak at the Knees” looped up, I rapped on that with N.W.A’s “Gangsta, Gangsta.” If you listen to “Gangsta, Gangsta,” and listen to “The N***a Ya Love to Hate,” you’ll see the difference in production. But those are the same loop. One of them is just going faster. The other is thicker and slower. So, after you do that, it’s all about just layering on top of it. So once we had a bottom beat and a rap—see, that was a song that we can go and record now. All the s***t that you gonna put on top of it wasn’t done until we got to Greene Street [studios]… We had the song, and we were trying to do scratched hooks all through the break. And I was like, “Since the song is ‘the n***a that you love to hate,’ the hook should be ‘F**k you, Ice Cube.’ And it should be people complaining about the kind of records I’m doing.” That was a big argument between us, about, should somebody say fuck you to themselves on their own record? Specifically, I guess I remember Jinx not really wanting to do that. He had his reasons, because he was in the inner thing with me and N.W.A. Dre is his cousin. He didn’t think it was cool, at the time, to do that, and I was like, “Man, it’s the perfect time.”

Read a lengthier excerpt at XXLMag.com, or purchase the June issue for the full article!